USAupdated 1h ago3 min read
US Election Officials Brace for Disruptions From Donald Trump and Federal Interference
“The administration hasn’t explicitly ruled out sending federal agents to the polls or seizing ballots or voting machines.”
“Officials have spent months considering what that might look like: a last-minute executive order, ballot seizures, federal agents at the polls”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Election officials brace for disruptions and potential federal involvement at polling sites Preparations include security tightening, worker training, and legal challenges for threats beyond Election Day
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Election officials brace
Election officials across the United States have spent months preparing to run the 2026 vote while bracing for disruptions that could include actions by President Donald Trump and his allies. Maricopa County Supervisor Thomas Galvin said, “Lately we have to take into account really horrible, worst-case scenarios, whether that is outside actors or foreign actors,” and he added that “the most important thing is that we have to be prepared.” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon warned that a “new hazard” could be “the possibility that our own federal government would try to interfere somehow, directly or indirectly,” as state and local officials trained workers, tightened security, and readied legal challenges.
The CNN account also described preparations for scenarios such as a last-minute executive order, ballot seizures, federal agents at the polls, and efforts to undermine trust in results, even as it said there have been no reports of major disruptions involving the federal government during early in-person voting. The same reporting said Trump wrote on Truth Social that a Republican candidate could lose only “if they cheat by playing games with the Ballots as they come in,” and he added, “The Federal Government will be watching closely.”
Federal agents, legal fights
ProPublica described how the Trump administration has tried to force states to turn over unredacted voter rolls and to restrict mail-in voting, while the Department of Homeland Security used resources to identify and prosecute noncitizen voters.
A DHS spokesperson told ProPublica that Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” and the spokesperson said the agency would only arrest people at the polls to address a safety threat as part of “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement.”
Ben Hovland, whom Trump fired as a commissioner for the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission earlier this year, said the administration has been creating “a lot of noise, a lot of confusion, a lot of doubt,” and he worried voters would “sit it out” and “throw their hands up.”
Mark Earley, the county’s supervisor of elections in Leon County, told ProPublica he was “furious” when two marked U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicles parked outside the county’s busiest early voting location.
Nick Brown, Washington’s attorney general, said the group he led had “war-gamed” how to react if government agents attempted to commandeer voting equipment or ballots, and he called the federal government “the biggest challenge to smooth elections right now, which is not the way it’s supposed to be.”
Local training and fear
San Diego County Registrar Shawn Brom instituted training for thousands of volunteer poll workers on how to respond if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appear near voting booths, while he worked with officials from the San Diego Sheriff’s Office and San Diego Police Department.
“We are making sure that our top priority is that our election is safe, secure and accessible for all voters in San Diego County.”
Brom said, “We are aware of the intimidation that could occur at voter sites,” and he added, “We are making sure that our top priority is that our election is safe, secure and accessible for all voters in San Diego County.”
The San Diego Union-Tribune account said U.S. attorneys across California sent warning letters demanding county registrars set aside thousands of ballots from “likely” noncitizens identified by the Department of Justice, and it said the letters granted 48 hours to agree to block counting of votes from some 20,000 allegedly fraudulent voters or face criminal prosecution.
County Counsel Damon Brown rejected the threat leveled by Adam Gordon, U.S. Attorney for the Department of Justice’s Southern District of California, and Brown said, “The DOJ’s request is a thinly veiled voter purge,” while he added, “The County will not be bullied into participating in DOJ’s fishing expedition.”
The same reporting said Brom hired 600 to 800 temporary employees and trained another 2,500 volunteer poll workers, and it quoted retired attorney Nate Northup saying, “It’s illegal,” and that if it does happen poll workers call 911 and keep dealing with the voters who are coming in to vote.